It is truly a SAD day!! I had a deer invasion last night!! They enjoyed some of my huge hostas for their midnight snack... nasty little deer!! I usually put Milorganite around my plants, but I guess my brain was just not with it this Spring and I forgot to do this.

Poor little baby hosta...

Aww, that stinks. Hopefully your little hosta will recover. Deer are a big concern of mine too as the woods around our house are full of them. I've been lucky so far, plus my whole backyard is fenced so at least the plants in my backyard are semi-protected.

all i have to worry about around here are groundhogs and rabbits (which is why i haven't planted a veggie garden yet )

I have been VERY negligent... with both updates here and taking pictures. I've missed pics of alot of stuff. The astilbe bloomed (what stalks the deer did not eat), the lilac is done showing off and the daylilies have come and gone all without pics. Here's a few old pics and a pic of the area we mulched on Saturday.
My weird "not really a dogwood but looks like one" tree:

I love this rose but don't know its variety since it came with the house.

Huge area to mulch (BTW, Sabaka potties here, so no brown grass spots!):

Creepy visitor!!


The hostas are huge! Daisies and Black-eyed Susans will be opening soon! And I have the first blooms on a snowball bush that I chopped down thinking it was a weed two years ago! I'll have to take more pics for sure...

Aww, that stinks you didn't get pics while everything was blooming! Eww I hate snakes in the worst way and since it's warmed up here I am seeing them more and more frequently.

I would love to know what the plant in the first pic is, you have any idea? Oh and the roses you have are gorgeous! I love the color!

My goodness you have a lot of area to mulch over! How many yards did you end up needing? We want to change all the pinestraw in our beds to cypress mulch this fall and it seems daunting enough when we only need about 12 yards I think.

great pics on the first 2 you posted. i love the not a dogwood but looks like a dogwood. wounder what it is....
after forgetting to take pictures last year i have taken a hell of a lot this year my daises have started to bloom but something is eating the lower leaves.

Some new color that's showing up in my yard in spite of the oppressive heat!! It may have topped 100 degrees for the record today. My outside thermometer was showing 102 degrees in the full sun!
Here goes....
I LOVE all types of daisies!

This snowball bush has a few issues. I cut it back assuming it was a weed a couple years ago. Last year it had no flowers. This year it's better... not just not right....

I try to plant indigenous plants when I can because they often do better. I guess they naturally tolerate the climate and often are local animal resistant.

I LOVE those daisies!

oh are those Black-eyed Susan's on the bottom?
thats the one thing i have not planted that i want to, maybe my back front bed i still need to build will get them.

i cut some of my daises over the weekend to have inside its nice to do that

Love the daisies! Heck, I love them all. Thanks for taking some pics of the flowers this time!

Jenn, the daisies you see in this picture are indeed now inside!

If you look closely you can see the buds for the next round which has just begun to bloom this week (these pics were taken last week). I think cutting the first blooms off before they expend any energy producing seeds will help the new blooms grow bigger and better.

And those are Black-Eyed Susans at the mailbox. They are taking over a daylily (barely seen on the right of the picture) and some sedum planted near the road (not in the picture).

It's really been fun following these gardens with you guys (and seeing your's as well)!

holy crow!! You have a Korean Dogwood???
<<< Super jealous over here. They're borderline for my zone. If I lived closer to Lake Michigan I'd be sorely tempted to attempt growing one. I used to work at a golf course on the maintainence crew, and as the course was practically next to the lake, there were 3 of them there. They were all about 20ft tall, and so incredibly pretty. I think you can eat the fruit....but would consult Dr. Google about that before trying.

gladahmae wrote:

holy crow!! You have a Korean Dogwood???
<<< Super jealous over here. They're borderline for my zone. If I lived closer to Lake Michigan I'd be sorely tempted to attempt growing one. I used to work at a golf course on the maintainence crew, and as the course was practically next to the lake, there were 3 of them there. They were all about 20ft tall, and so incredibly pretty. I think you can eat the fruit....but would consult Dr. Google about that before trying.

Why, yes, I guess I do! LOL!
I have been calling it "not a dogwood but looks like a dogwood" tree. The fruit is quite messy and, I have heard, edible.

The first year we lived here it had only a few blooms on it. Last spring it was covered in blooms! I wonder what made the difference? It blooms much later than the neighborhood American dogwoods.